What Recurly costs, who owns it, and how its subscription billing, churn prevention, and revenue recognition tools stack up for growing SaaS and DTC businesses.
Category
Payments
Pricing
Tiered subscription combining a base platform fee with a percentage of billing volume; higher tiers require a 1 million dollar minimum annual billing volume, with custom enterprise pricing available., from $249/month plus 0.9 percent of billing volume (Starter plan, first $40,000 in monthly volume included)
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 19, 2026
Founded
2009
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, United States (additional offices in Boulder, New Orleans, and London)
Web AppFree TrialAPIAI
Overview
Recurly is a subscription billing and revenue platform founded in 2009 in San Francisco, where it remains headquartered. Since a 2020 majority equity investment from private equity firm Accel-KKR, Recurly has continued to grow through acquisitions of companies like Redfast, Prive, and LeapRev.
The platform serves subscription-based businesses that need automated recurring billing, churn prevention, and revenue reporting, positioning itself against competitors like Chargebee and Zuora for mid-market and larger subscription companies.
Key Features
Recurly's core billing product covers automated global subscription billing, flexible pricing and plan configuration, dunning campaigns for failed payments, and support for more than 10 payment methods and 20+ payment gateways. Higher tiers add AI-powered churn prediction, payments orchestration, custom reporting, and single sign-on.
Beyond core billing, Recurly sells Engage for AI-driven retention and upsell campaigns, and RevRec for automated, multi-GAAP-compliant revenue recognition, letting subscription businesses handle billing, retention, and accounting compliance within one vendor relationship.
Pricing
Recurly's Starter plan costs 249 dollars per month plus 0.9 percent of billing volume, with the first 40,000 dollars of monthly volume included. The All-Access plan is priced at under 1 percent of billing volume, billed annually, but requires a minimum of 1 million dollars in annual billing volume.
A separate All-Access for Shopify plan targets subscription commerce merchants, while Engage and RevRec are sold as add-on products starting at 1,600 dollars and 850 dollars per month respectively, both billed annually.
Key Features
Automated global subscription billing — Handles recurring invoicing, proration, and plan changes across currencies and regions.
Flexible plan and pricing configuration — Supports complex pricing models, plan changes, and promotional pricing.
AI-powered churn prevention and dunning — Automated retry logic and dunning campaigns to recover failed payments.
Payments orchestration — Routes payments across more than 20 gateways and 10+ payment methods.
Multicurrency support and SSO — Global currency support plus single sign-on on higher-tier plans.
Engage retention tooling — AI-driven churn prediction, personalized offers, and A/B testing for retention campaigns.
Hosted subscriber portal — Passwordless, self-serve portal for subscribers to manage billing, available on the Shopify plan.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Mature, well-established platform founded in 2009 with enterprise-grade reliability
Strong churn-prevention and dunning tooling built into the core product
Dedicated Shopify-focused subscription commerce plan
Add-on products (Engage, RevRec) extend beyond core billing into retention and revenue recognition
Broad payment method and gateway support for global billing
Cons
Percentage-of-billing-volume pricing can get expensive as revenue scales
All-Access tier requires a 1 million dollar minimum annual billing volume
Pricing is not fully self-serve or transparent for higher tiers and requires a sales conversation
Engage and RevRec are priced and sold separately from core billing
Pricing
Starter $249/month + 0.9% of billing volume Monthly
All-Access Under 1% of billing volume (minimum $1M annual billing volume) Annual
All-Access for Shopify Under 1% of billing volume Annual
Engage (add-on) From $1,600/month Annual
RevRec (add-on) From $850/month Annual
Frequently Asked Questions
Who owns Recurly?
Recurly has been majority-owned by the private equity firm Accel-KKR since a 2020 investment.
When was Recurly founded?
Recurly was founded in September 2009 in San Francisco by Isaac Hall, Dan Burkhart, and Tim Van Loan.
How much does Recurly cost?
Recurly's Starter plan costs 249 dollars per month plus 0.9 percent of billing volume; higher tiers are priced as a percentage of billing volume with a 1 million dollar minimum.
Does Recurly work with Shopify?
Yes, Recurly offers a dedicated All-Access for Shopify plan for merchants selling subscription products.
What is Recurly Engage?
Engage is Recurly's separately priced, AI-driven churn prediction and retention product, starting at 1,600 dollars per month.
What is Recurly RevRec?
RevRec is Recurly's automated revenue recognition and compliance product, starting at 850 dollars per month.
How big is Recurly?
Recurly has an estimated 200 to 350-plus employees as of 2026, according to various data providers.
What companies has Recurly acquired?
Recurly has acquired Redfast, Prive, and LeapRev to expand its churn-prevention and analytics capabilities.